General users can now download the public beta of Google Chrome for Mac, as the Web browser software was finally made available Tuesday.

Chrome for Mac has been a long time coming, more than a year after its Windows counterpart first debuted in beta. Though it was originally intended to release in the first half of 2009, the product hit numerous delays.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin admitted this year that Chrome's absence on the Mac platform was an embarrassment for his company. The company worked to ensure that the beta version of the browser would reach a deadline of the end of 2009.

The download, available direct from Google, is 17.6MB. It requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later, and only runs on Intel processors.

"We've been working hard to deliver a first-class browser for the Mac — it took longer than we expected, but we hope the wait was worth it!" the development team said on its official blog. "We wanted Google Chrome to feel at home on the Mac, so we've focused on uniting our clean, simple design with subtle animations and effects to create a snappy and satisfying browsing experience on OS X. As you might expect, the speed of Google Chrome for Mac is something we're very proud of. If you have a Mac, try installing the beta and see how fast it launches — there's hardly even time for the icon in the dock to bounce!"

The company also released a Mac-specific video tutorial to accompany the launch:

As it is a beta, Google Chrome for Mac lacks some of the features that have been present for some time in its Windows counterpart, such as Google Gears for offline support of Web applications like Gmail. However, recent reports have suggested Google will move away from Gears in favor of HTML5, the next major version of the core markup language of the World Wide Web.

But it does feature exclusive Mac-style animations when the Bookmarks bar is opened, and is integrated into the system Keychain and spellchecking.

Google highlighted the following features of its browser along with the new Mac release:

Speed: Google Chrome loads pages and runs web applications in a snap.

Stability: Google Chrome is built for stability. If an individual tab freezes or crashes, the other tabs are unaffected.

Omnibox: Use the Omnibox to type both web addresses and searches in Google Chrome.

New Tab page: Visit your favorite websites easily from the New Tab page. When you open a new tab, the sites you visit most often are readily available.

Clean look, but not as elegant as Safari
Favicons on Bookmarks bar are
Does not play well on YouTube pages with HD content
Seems about as fast as Safari
Tabs on top are nice, they seem to stand out more

Will stick with Safari, but if I had to use any other browser it would be Chrome.

... As it is a beta, Google Chrome for Mac lacks some of the features that have been present for some time in its Windows counterpart, such as ...

I don't' have the details handy, but the last I heard the Mac version will lack *most* of the major features that made it into the Windows version over a year ago.

While you do mention that it has one missing feature, you make it sound like that's it. This article seems like glowing praise for Chrome rather than an actual review or even an introduction. You should have got Daniel to write an article that gives the development some kind of context, some background into the why's and wherefores of Chrome development, and who they are aiming to unseat with this product.

I don't' have the details handy, but the last I heard the Mac version will lack *most* of the major features that made it into the Windows version over a year ago.

While you do mention that it has one missing feature, you make it sound like that's it. This article seems like glowing praise for Chrome rather than an actual review or even an introduction. You should have got Daniel to write an article that gives the development some kind of context, some background into the why's and wherefores of Chrome development, and who they are aiming to unseat with this product.

Hint: it begins with an Moz...

As AI stated,

Quote:

As it is a beta, Google Chrome for Mac lacks some of the features that have been present for some time in its Windows counterpart, such as Google Gears for offline support of Web applications like Gmail.

Where in the English language does it, i.e., "such as," imply, "that's it?" Certainly not it all the years of schooling or teaching that I can remember.

I can't find any browser I like these days. IE is insecure. Safari likes to start a daemon process that downloads sites in the background, even though my Internet connection has a download limit. Gee, thanks Safari.

Google apps all seem to install a software updater these days. It's almost surreptitious, it does not appear in your startup items but it's there. And was not mentioned anywhere on the Google QSB site which is what installed it for me.

I can't find any browser I like these days. IE is insecure. Safari likes to start a daemon process that downloads sites in the background, even though my Internet connection has a download limit. Gee, thanks Safari.

Google apps all seem to install a software updater these days. It's almost surreptitious, it does not appear in your startup items but it's there. And was not mentioned anywhere on the Google QSB site which is what installed it for me.

Firefox is a real resource hog.

Opera? Haven't tried that in a while. Maybe will take a look.

I agree with you here, no real "perfect" browser. Each has features I want, but not a single one has all of them.

Opera was fast and such, but I found it to be incompatible with a larger amount of websites and so uninstalled it from my computer, to the point where a good number of pages didn't load correctly (aka how things were arranged on the page), if at all. Personally, I stick with Firefox and Chrome (Windows) though each have their own set of issues.

I can't find any browser I like these days. IE is insecure. Safari likes to start a daemon process that downloads sites in the background, even though my Internet connection has a download limit. Gee, thanks Safari.

Google apps all seem to install a software updater these days. It's almost surreptitious, it does not appear in your startup items but it's there. And was not mentioned anywhere on the Google QSB site which is what installed it for me.

I can't find any browser I like these days. IE is insecure. Safari likes to start a daemon process that downloads sites in the background, even though my Internet connection has a download limit. Gee, thanks Safari.

Google apps all seem to install a software updater these days. It's almost surreptitious, it does not appear in your startup items but it's there. And was not mentioned anywhere on the Google QSB site which is what installed it for me.

Firefox is a real resource hog.

Opera? Haven't tried that in a while. Maybe will take a look.

I find Firefox particularly slow on the Mac compared with Windows. It seems to get worse with each update. All I have installed in extensions is Adblock Plus.

On topic, Chrome is superb but definitely feels incomplete. I mean, it still doesn't have a bookmark manager. I just cleared a ton of bookmarks, Safari and Firefox have synced and all is well. I don't have an option to sync or delete the bookmarks in Chrome without doing so individually.

Clean look, but not as elegant as Safari
Favicons on Bookmarks bar are
Does not play well on YouTube pages with HD content
Seems about as fast as Safari
Tabs on top are nice, they seem to stand out more

Will stick with Safari, but if I had to use any other browser it would be Chrome.

32-bit Chrome gets ~500ms. 64-bit Safari is 50% slower at ~750ms.

I quite like the FavIcons in the Bookmarks Bar. I have tried to replicate it as I only want a unique icon to denote the link or folder. This gives me a lot more items to click on in my Bar. I understand that many dont want this, but i wish it was a Safari option. I may have to jump to Chrome for good.

HD YouTube videos work fine for me. Are you using the Flash 10.1 Beta?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abster2core

As AI stated,

Quote:

As it is a beta, Google Chrome for Mac lacks some of the features that have been present for some time in its Windows counterpart, such as Google Gears for offline support of Web applications like Gmail.

Where in the English language does it, i.e., "such as," imply, "that's it?" Certainly not it all the years of schooling or teaching that I can remember.

Segue Will it ever get Google Gears? I thought they halted advancement of it in favour of HTML5s local DB caching. I would expect to see that feature before GG.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

I like Chrome and am glad it's finally on the Mac side. Safari is good too but it annoys me how I can't tell the browser to open links in tabs automatically without having to right-click and click open in tab. You can set Chrome to do it automatically which is one of my favorite features.

I do wish it had the flash blocking capability of Firefox's plugin or built-in like Camino. I tried Camino out and liked it except for the fact that when scrolling thru web pages the text looks really bad and it doesn't scroll as smoothly as Safari does.

Just like cars, there is no perfect one. At least any of these options are way better than slow IE.

I like Chrome and am glad it's finally on the Mac side. Safari is good too but it annoys me how I can't tell the browser to open links in tabs automatically without having to right-click and click open in tab. You can set Chrome to do it automatically which is one of my favorite features.

I would like that option but I’ve looked and can’t find it in Chrome for Mac.

edit: Scratch that, I thought you meant in the background. As Sgt Zeppelin posts below, you can do it.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

Could really do without it opening the sites I most visit automatically, ahem.

Been using the pre-beta for a week or two and it's pretty solid. Can't really see settling on just one browser for my work though. Safari is fast but doesn't work for router and website admin stuff. Firefox is a turd to start but works ok otherwise. Chrome seems like a nice compliment to both. Competition is good!

I like Chrome and am glad it's finally on the Mac side. Safari is good too but it annoys me how I can't tell the browser to open links in tabs automatically without having to right-click and click open in tab. You can set Chrome to do it automatically which is one of my favorite features.

I do wish it had the flash blocking capability of Firefox's plugin or built-in like Camino. I tried Camino out and liked it except for the fact that when scrolling thru web pages the text looks really bad and it doesn't scroll as smoothly as Safari does.

Just like cars, there is no perfect one. At least any of these options are way better than slow IE.

Code:

defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true

Copy and paste that into Terminal and Safari will automatically open the link you click in new tabs instead of windows. You can switch back to the old behavior by changing "true" to "false'.

I've been using both Safari and nightly Chromium builds. I like certain parts of both browsers, so whichever one adds the features I want from the other first will probably become my browser of choice.

I really find them creepy...The very folksy, homemade, Michel Gondry-style innocence.....so adorable, you'd never think that Google is a multi-billion dollar company, already controlling so much of the web...

I can deal with a lot of the changes over Safari, even the loss of ClickToFlash, but I can't stand closing the tabs from the right side. I'll give it the rest of the day to get use to it but it's not looking good for Chrome at this point.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

Even with the tabs on top it's still the same size as Safari, both with tabs, toobar and bookmark bars. In fact, Safari is still slightly smaller, but only by a couple pixels. Plus there is no status bar.

The additional performance is not enough to win me over yet.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

about the only use for Chrome is to surf pr0n and delete your history without it affecting your real surfing. most women only know IE and Firefox so they won't know what that Chrome thing is on the computer.

I can't find any browser I like these days. IE is insecure. Safari likes to start a daemon process that downloads sites in the background, even though my Internet connection has a download limit. Gee, thanks Safari.

Google apps all seem to install a software updater these days. It's almost surreptitious, it does not appear in your startup items but it's there. And was not mentioned anywhere on the Google QSB site which is what installed it for me.

Firefox is a real resource hog.

Opera? Haven't tried that in a while. Maybe will take a look.

You're more than welcome to program your own browser. Let us know when you write the perfect browser.

Using a very low market share browser (and OS) for pr0n is a smart thing as there are less exploits widely distributed for it. Thus less malicious behavior either on the part of the web site or someone who has hacked the web site. Turn off scripts too naturally.

If you want to try out the entire Chrome OS (not just the browser) in Fusion see this link:

Although Google does require a account with them, which all information is saved.

The advantage of using entire alternate, secure and virtually unused OS in a Virtual Machine is the ability to wipe the entire OS version and revert back to the first install after use, then OS updating from there if need be. Fusion uses what they call "Snapshots" to do this.

Sometime some OS's keep thumbnail pictures in hidden caches, despite all your cleaning and erasing efforts. People have gone to jail for thumbnail caches. So surf safely and wisely.

1: Don't let anyone use your wifi, enable the more advanced features of your router and shut out anyone else except your MAC address(s). Having a insecure wifi to cause reasonable doubt does not work (unless your reasonable dumb too), it will be made to look like you kept your wifi purposely insecure. Use WPA2 only, WEP and WPA are cracked. Change the default password and use very complex and long passwords for both admin and guest access.

2: Don't let anyone use your computer. If you do, set up a guest account and then delete it and use Disk Utility Erase free space 7 pass or better. Better yet, revert back from a virgin clone, with a 7 pass in between.

"Frameware" is a dangerous new trend amongst the internet bad guys and hostile countries, it's not just about surfing safely anymore, it's about being very very secure and assuming something is there regardless and knowing your machine is clean with a wipe and revert of some sort. You might be innocent, but it will cost you a fortune and your reputation defending yourself in either case. Some hackers think inflicting this on people is funny and amusing, incidents of this type are going to rise.

Use Onyx for OS X cache, browser and system cleaning, although I don't know if it cleans browser caches outside of Safari or not. Safari in my opinion, has not been very safe surfing the more hostile sites with, neither has Firefox. It must be assumed Google's Chrome records everything, just like they record all your search results and IP address with Google search. (yea in Safari too)

Time Machine is another nightmare, a whole another computer you'll need to just to surf for pr0n without messing with that.

I won't tell you what OS and browser I use, because I don't want to start a trend.

The danger is that we sleepwalk into a world where cabals of corporations control not only the mainstream devices and the software on them, but also the entire ecosystem of online services around...

... Where in the English language does it, i.e., "such as," imply, "that's it?"[/B] Certainly not it all the years of schooling or teaching that I can remember.

My point was that this article is what is traditionally known as a "puff piece."

The use of "such as" directly implies that the example mentioned *isn't* "all there is" as you point out, and in fact, there are many milestones of the Chrome project included in the Windows version from last year that are not included in the Mac version which isn't even coming out of beta until next year. These are not mentioned.

We are treated to many videos of what's great about Chrome and much glowing prose. A single (qualified no less), mention of a feature that is not included just doesn't cut it in terms of journalistic balance. Especially when that feature is something that has been deprecated in the project as a whole, Windows version included.

To not mention the missing features, the delays, and the generally poor reception of the Mac Chrome beta by those that have tested it, is (IMO), irresponsible and biased. Especially in light of the SIX videos promoting it above.

I'm just saying a little balance would be nice and that Google can do their own advertising for Chrome well enough that they don't need AI to do it for them.

I don't know what the purpose of a webkit based browser on os x is since safari is the foremost webkit browser.

BUT

apple please make it happen, tabs on top, at least as an option!!

Their V8 JS engine is hella faster than Nitro. Plus it will likely be more like FireFox when they finally get it out of Beta. Chrome for Windows and Linux got extensions with Safari extensions come eventually.

I do miss my tabs on top of Safari. It really was nice to have that extra real estate for browsing.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"